Democrat “establishment” candidate Thomas Perez (shown) became the new Democratic National Committee chairman in Atlanta on Saturday, by a vote of 235-200. Keith Ellison, far-left member of the House from Minnesota, came in a close second, after a second vote was necessary to determine the winner.
Hard-left groups, hoping to pull the Democrat Party even further left with an Ellison victory, were disappointed in Perez’ win. Jim Dean, chair of Democracy for America, which was founded by by his brother, former Vermont Governor and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, in 2004, said: “This incredibly disappointing result is another missed opportunity [Hillary Clinton’s victory over Bernie Sanders in the Democrat primary being the first] for a Democratic Party desperately trying to regain relevance and proves, once again, how out of touch party insiders [Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Valerie Jarrett] are with the grassroots movement currently in the streets, on the phone, and at town halls nationwide.”
Dean was referring to the Bernie Sanders supporters whom he galvanized during the Democrat presidential campaign last year only to have the Sanders campaign allegedly sabotaged by those “insiders,” giving Clinton the nomination.
Dan Cantor, national director of the equally far-left Working Families Party, lamented the result as well: “This vote may sting for progressives, particularly young people. Since Inauguration Day, millions of people around the country have marched against [President] Trump. Keith Ellison was uniquely qualified to transform that anger and fear into political power and organization.”
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Indeed, when The New American reported on Ellison’s campaign for DNC chair, which was announced just days after the election in November, we wrote: “It is clear from a review of Ellison’s background that he has all the credentials needed to chair the DNC,” and then listed some of those credentials most of the mainstream media failed to uncover:
• In 2006, he became the first Muslim to be elected to the House;
• During his personal swearing-in ceremony (merely a photo-op, as the real swearing-in ceremony was done for all members en masse), Ellison insisted on using a Koran rather than a Bible;
• He is a leader of the House Progressive Caucus;
• He is a former steering committee member of the communist National Lawyers Guild;
• He has received an endorsement from the Communist Party USA;
• He is one of eight members of Congress (all Democrats) arrested in 2013 for blocking traffic on Independence Avenue in Washington, D.C., during an immigration rally;
• He has suffered repeated suspensions of his driver’s license for failure to pay traffic tickets and fines;
• He has failed to pay income taxes in five separate years, forcing the IRS to place liens on his house;
• He has endorsed the far-left radical Louis Farrakhan, claiming that he “is not an anti-Semite” and “is a sincere, tireless and uncompromising advocate of the black community”;
• He has been sanctioned repeatedly for election campaign rule violations and was sued twice by Minnesota’s attorney general over such violations;
• He has had a 10-year relationship with Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood, from whom he has received campaign contributions during his reelection campaigns; and
• His voting record reflects his monumental disdain for the Constitution. His Freedom Index (a congressional scorecard based on the Constitution that rates congressmen on their adherence to limited government, fiscal responsibility, and national sovereignty) is a mere 25 out of 100.
Not knowing that Ellison’s candidacy would be challenged, we concluded: “With endorsements from the likes of [Charles] Schumer, [Bernie] Sanders, and [Elizabeth] Warren, how could he lose?”
He almost didn’t, not that it would have made a dime’s worth of difference, ideologically speaking. Perez’ far-left background, which most of the mainstream media failed even to mention, included one particularly galling incident where he used his position as Obama’s Department of Labor secretary to excoriate the so-called school-to-prison pipeline that allegedly funnels large numbers of black youths into the U.S. prison system without cause. In a July 2014 speech delivered to hundreds of black students at Howard University, Perez stated that school authorities in Mississippi had recently had black high-schoolers arrested for infractions as small as wearing the “wrong color tie” or the “wrong color socks,” or for “flatulence.” “I’m not making this up,” Perez assured his audience. “This is Meridian, Mississippi, where we still see separate and unequal…. We thought we had made progress [but] this is America [today].”
Hoover Institution fellow Paul Sperry revealed Perez’ duplicity in the New York Post on August 17, 2014:
[Perez] was making it up. Meridian Public School District students have never been jailed simply for breaking school dress code, as he implied. That would be false imprisonment. They have, however, been mildly disciplined for wearing the wrong uniform to school. Meridian, which is mostly black, has a strict dress code to prevent gang violence. And some students do wear ankle bracelets to school — but only because they broke actual laws and were convicted of crimes by a juvenile judge. Perez conflated the circumstances, even though he knew better…. At Howard, Perez made it sound as if Meridian were run by a bunch of white, racist Bull Connors. What he failed to mention is that the Meridian school superintendent, Dr. Alvin Taylor, and four of the five Meridian school board members are all black. So is the judge running the juvenile court.
From 1995 to 2002, Perez served as a board member and the president of Casa de Maryland, a George Soros-funded advocacy group for illegal aliens. As Eliseo Medina, a Casa de Maryland supporter, told a “Take Back America” conference in 2010, “If we reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters. Can you imagine if we have … even two out of three, if we get 8 million new voters? … We will create a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.”
Perez is fully ready to take on the Trump administration. Calling Trump “the worst president in the history of the United States,” Perez immediately nominated Ellison as his “deputy chairman,” which allows Ellison to retain his seat in Congress while pursuing the destruction of the Trump administration. This was made clear following a tweet from Trump after Perez’s victory, in which Trump offered Perez his congratulations: “Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has just been named Chairman of the DNC. I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!” Perez punched back: “Call me Tom. And don’t get too happy. @keithellison and I, and Democrats united across the country, will be your worst nightmare.”
Photo: AP Images
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
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